Crosspost From Hope Works Community

new on www.hopeworkscommunity.wordpress.com

on defining what is possible

"... our definition of what we can't do anything about grows larger
and larger..."
--- from a previous post


The above quote expresses part of the real poison of bipolar disorder,
both for the consumer and for family members.  After so many bad
things happening you begin to despair of anything else.  Life becomes
about feeling better and finding some way to minimize the pain that
seems to be everywhere you go and be there with everything you do.
For too many people even trying seems pointless and suspect.  I know.
I have been there.

You are told after all that bipolar is a brain disorder and what can
be more inevitable than that?  Then there are so many problems and so
many things seem so inevitable it seems like hope is a pointless
delusion.  They tell you that with the right medication life will be
"normal" and you wonder what else is wrong with your brain because you
don't ever seem to be able to find the "right medication."  No one
tells you that for many people it takes 4 or 5 tries to find a
medication regimen that begins to work and for some people then the
"right medication" seems to offer little relief.

Recovery for many seems to be trying on a new suit of clothes.  For
you it seems like major surgery and you despair of ever getting to
something better.  Linda and I have both been there too.

For me I found out that learning to think clearer helped me to see
better.  We found out that it was important to draw the distinction
between causes and impacts.   The diathesis theory of bipolar
disorder, as I understand it, says that it  is more than anything else
a tendency or vulnerability.  This vulnerabilty is then triggered by
life events.  For some the tendency is very strong and requires little
in the way of trigger.  For others it may lay dormant until a later
period in life.  There is unquestionably a large genetic component,
but environmental stuff makes it better or worse, more or less likely.
To deal with causes both medication and lifestyle modifications are
normally critical.

But even that may not be enough.  Bipolar doesn't just have causes.
It has impacts.  It affects virtually every area of life: self-esteem,
relationships with other people, family, work, community, safety, and
physical health plus countless others.  In order to improve life you
will probably have to address the issue of the way it has impacted
your life.  For example, and perhaps most importantly, relationships
with others need to be improved.  This can take more than a little bit
of work and more than a little bit of time depending on what kind of
problems there may have been.

One way to look at it is to look developmentally.  The first thing
that happens is that day to day living becomes better.  It becomes
possible to get from the beginning of the day to the end without
catastrophe.  It is here where intervention on causes is likely to
have the greatest effect.  But life is more than getting from the
beginning of the day to the end.

The next thing that happens is to improve, develop, or mend
relationships with others.  This is not likely to happen if you cannot
get from the beginning of the day to the end.  When the focus of our
life is dealing with how stressful it is, we are unlikely to do much
to successfully rebalance other things.  At this level you are mainly
dealing with the impacts of bipolar.

A final step is in our developing our ideas of who we are and what our
purpose in life is.  I have known many people who have found their
purpose in service to others particularly in being a resource for
recovery for others.

Bipolar is so much more than what medications you take or how you
change your lifestyle.  It is about every aspect of life and who you
are.  And while many things may remain hard and there may be much to
deal with, the chance of new and better life is real.  Changing the
impacts of bipolar can help to change your life.

--
Larry Drain
www.hopeworkscommunity.wordpress.com
www.hopeworksadvocacy.wordpress.com